City Going For The Gold In Anxiety

Olympic trouble?

ATLANTA — Tonight this city kicks off four years of Olympic hoopla with a star-studded pep rally in its new Georgia Dome.

Whitney Houston will be here to welcome the Olympic flag. James Brown, Santana and Dick Clark will be here. Even President Bush is expected to be here.

''Flag Jam '92,'' as it's called, is supposed to regenerate some of the euphoria that swept the city two years ago this week, when the president of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Samaranch, announced from Tokyo that the 1996 Olympics would take place in ''Aht-lahn-tah.''

But much has changed since then. Since the end of the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona, Spain, this city has been infected with a strong case of Olympic angst. Many fear that, behind the scenes, all is not well in Olympicland.

''Part of the anxiety is that, aside from the arrival of the flag, there's not a lot that could be pointed to that indicates where things are right now,'' said Tim Crimmins, a Georgia State University historian. ''People know we are running out of time.''

As the countdown clock in the lobby of ACOG - the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games - continues to tick down the days and hours to the opening ceremonies in '96, this city is besieged by second-guessing and self-doubts.

For starters, the star of tonight's show - the Olympic flag - will be a no-show.

''The Olympic flag itself won't be there for the Flag Jam,'' an ACOG spokeswoman acknowledged. ''It will be in Rome.''

Rome, Ga., that is. Since leaving Barcelona, the flag has been on a 1,400-mile tour of Georgia towns and cities aboard a steam train filled with Olympic memorabilia and chamber of commerce officials.

When the flag finally reaches Atlanta on Friday for four days of civic chest-thumping, it will be met by an AFL-CIO protest to highlight concerns that organized labor will be squeezed out of Olympic construction projects.

Minority-owned businesses are also complaining about the lack of access to Olympic bids, and the local arts community objected loudly when ACOG hired a San Francisco company to redesign the official Atlanta Olympic logo. Black leaders are griping that Atlanta's African-American heritage seems absent from the city's Olympic plans. Some have even suggested staging ''Humankind'' games to coincide, if not compete, with the Olympics.

There is almost daily hand-wringing over a perceived leadership vacuum and the need for somebody - maybe an Olympic czar - to step forward as the governmental counterpart to ACOG President Billy Payne.

But nothing has heightened the city's fears and anxieties as much as ''WHATIZIT,'' the official Olympic mascot, which has been likened to a ''blue maggot'' since its debut during the closing ceremonies in Barcelona.

''ACOG was doing well until they dropped that bomb of a mascot,'' said Paul Tolusso, a 26-year-old Atlanta trade analyst. ''I thought, 'Oh oh, if the people in charge put this together, we may be in trouble.' ''

ACOG has been almost goofy in its defense of the mascot - which was designed by a local firm - defining the public ridicule as acclaim.

''It's the most talked-about Olympic mascot that has ever been,'' said Marty Appel, ACOG's director of public relations.

More than just a mascot, WHAT-IZIT has become a magnet for all that people think is wrong with ACOG: it's too insular, it's too arrogant, it's in too deep over its head.

''I don't think anyone has a clear focus of where we're going and where we're going to end up,'' said Joey Reiman, head of Atlanta's Babbit & Reiman advertising agency. ''WHATIZIT is the perfect symbol of this confusion.''

Much of Atlanta's internal agonizing reflects an inferiority complex that has always existed beneath the city's fabled boosterism. Behind the cheerleaders onstage is a chorus line of self-doubt.

''Beneath the booster spirit there is this bit of anxiety, of, 'Are we as good as we say we are?' '' said Dana White, a professor of urban studies at Emory University. ''For certain parts of Atlanta, there has always been the fear we would end up with something so hokey it would be embarrassing.''

Not to worry, says Appel, the ACOG spokesman: ''Everything is right where it should be. The IOC (International Olympic Committee), which assesses our progress from time to time, considers us to be farther along than any other previous organizing committee.''

Still, Atlanta's first Olympic statement to the world was a question: WHATIZIT? Beginning tonight, Atlanta's Olympic leaders have four years to figure out the answer.

''They haven't decided what image of the city they want to present to the world. They don't know who we are,'' said Michael Lomax, chairman of the Fulton County Commission and one of ACOG's leading critics. ''We have to come to terms with who we are by 1996. When we do that, we can turn the question mark into an exclamation point.''